Will Ackerman Returning: Pieces For Guitar 1970-2004

Numbered, Limited Edition 180g Vinyl!
2005 Grammy Award:
- Best New Age Album
Will Ackerman's 2005 Grammy award winning recording Returning is coming on 180g vinyl for the first time. Ackerman is universally recognized as the preeminent pioneer and face of the new age music movement. Will is also the founder of the legendary Windham Hill Records.
The story of how he met Michael Hedges in a coffee shop in Palo Alto in 1981 was widely spread by Will Ackerman himself. While still on site, he scribbled a contract between the guitarist and his Windham Hill Records label on a napkin and made good money with this discovery. Like Hedges, Ackerman was a guitarist with a weakness for unusual guitar tunings. In 2005 he brought together his most famous songs for Returning , recognized worldwide as a pioneer of New Age music.
Ackerman himself had noticed when listening to the first recordings that the songs had matured over the years. They had become more nuanced, more precise, and more personal. So he recorded them again with the new technical possibilities and better guitars. The award was a 2005 Grammy in the "Best New Age Album" category. Kevin Gray has now remastered the tapes for Audio Fidelity. Returning: Pieces For Guitar 1970 - 2004 appears in a limited edition with a consecutive serial number as a 33 vinyl LP in a sturdy gatefold cover with detailed liner notes on the inside.
In 2004, after years of growth and introspection, Ackerman re-recorded an album of his best-known songs, a greatest hits collection with all new performances. Will's goal was to take a series of 11 favorite songs and record them for posterity in a way that reflects the emotional nuances, precision, and maturing beauty they've picked up along the road.
He includes the graceful and lushly melodic "The Bricklayer's Beautiful Daughter," the sweet and melancholy "Anne's Song" (inspired by working with fellow genre legends Alex de Grassi and Michael Hedges), and two peaceful early gems from 1970, "Pictures" and "Barbara's Song." Some were written as celebrations ("Unconditional"), others as elegies ("The Impending Death of the Virgin Spirit"), but all are intricate snapshots of a vastly influential musical life that keeps inventive to this day.
"I don't write music in any academic sense. I've learned to shut out rational thought and simply feel. If I get out of the way, the music is simply given to me." - Will Ackerman
"Sound tip AUDIO! Timeless music with a wonderful euphoria." - Lothar Brandt, AUDIO, edition 7/2017
"Now the sound specialists at Audio Fidelity are putting the good piece back on and I dare to doubt that Kevin Gray did a worse job here than Bob Ludwig at the time. Ackerman's compositions are pure emotionality and harmony, into which one can and must let oneself fall in order for it to work for eleven titles. Close your eyes, take a deep breath and, at a moderate volume, sink into total harmony at the highest level, in the near future there will be nothing else than a virtuoso steel-string guitar." - Holger Barske, LP, issue 5/2017
"Tough heavy metal fans or noise proponents are welcome to turn the pages at this point. If, on the other hand, you want to dive into decelerated, noise-free spheres, you could discover a real insider tip here." - Lothar Brandt, MINT, edition 7/2017
All the well-known classics are here. A one of a kind compilation.

Features:

• 180g+ Pure Virgin Vinyl
• Gatefold Jacket
• Numbered, Limited Edition
• Specially Remastered for this LP
• Made In The U.S.A.

Selections:

Side A
1. Bricklayer's Beautiful Daughter
2. Anne's song
3. The Impending Death of the Virgin Spirit
4. Pictures
5. Hawk Circle
Side B
1. Barbara's Song
2. Unconditional
3. Visiting
4. Processional
5. In a region of clouds
6. Last Day at the Beach